by Lynn Austin
Agonized silence filled the room. Eliakim stared mutely at the floor. Never in his life had there been such a terrible, irreparable rift between him and his father. Hilkiah’s faith was the most important thing in his life, and Eliakim had challenged that faith. Worse, he had called him a hypocrite.
Again Jerimoth broke the silence. “Please . . . forgive me for interfering—but I beg you to reconcile, for my sake.”
Eliakim slowly looked up, afraid to face his father, afraid to ask for the forgiveness he didn’t deserve. “Abba . . . I’m so sorry—” he began, but Eliakim’s words were silenced by the strength of his father’s embrace.
Hephzibah awoke while it was still dark, and at first she wasn’t sure what had awakened her. But then she felt the dull, cramping ache inside and drew her knees up to her chest to ease the pain. When it died away, she lay still for a moment, listening in the darkness to Hezekiah’s breathing as he slept beside her. A few minutes passed; then suddenly the pain returned, stronger than before. It was how she’d imagined labor pains would feel—but the baby shouldn’t be coming this soon. Fear overwhelmed her.
She waited for the pain to ease, then slipped quietly from the bed. As she paused to pull the covers over her sleeping husband, she saw blood soaking the sheet. She cried out and sank to the floor beside the bed.
Hezekiah stirred, then sat up. “Hephzibah, what is it? What’s wrong?” Another pain twisted through her before she could answer, and she cried out again. Hezekiah threw the covers aside and bounded out of bed. “Merab! Somebody—come quickly!” he shouted.
Merab tottered from her room, wrapping herself in a robe. When she reached Hephzibah’s side she gasped. “Oh no—my lady—my lady!” More servants rushed into the room and lifted Hephzibah onto her bed. She saw Hezekiah standing over her, looking shaken and stunned. Merab took his arm and hustled him to the door.
“You’d better leave now, Your Majesty.”
Hephzibah felt another pain intensifying. She began to scream.
Hezekiah returned to his chambers, but he couldn’t sleep. “Dear God, please—don’t take Hephzibah, too,” he whispered.
He stared out of his window into the dark night, worrying about her, remembering the blood, pleading with Yahweh not to take her from him. Adjusting to Zechariah’s death had been so difficult that he couldn’t bear to think about losing Hephzibah. She was so much a part of his life now that he wouldn’t be whole without her. Hephzibah was more to him than any other person had ever been—confidante, companion, lover, friend. How could he live without her laughter, her songs, her beauty, her love? He loved her. He had never acknowledged it before, but he knew it was true, and he was seized with the terrifying thought that she might die. With his hands bunched into fists, Hezekiah fell to his knees and prayed.
As the sun rose, he could no longer bear the agony of waiting. He returned to Hephzibah’s room and tapped on the door. Merab opened it a crack.
“Is Hephzibah all right?” he asked.
“Yes, my lord. She’s asleep. She’ll be fine in a few days.”
“Oh, thank God.” His knees went weak as relief surged through him.
“But the baby is gone. I’m so sorry, Your Majesty.”
For a moment Hezekiah didn’t comprehend what Merab had said. In his concern for Hephzibah, he had never thought of their baby. Suddenly he understood.
“Let me see her, Merab. I won’t wake her.”
Hezekiah crept into the room and stood beside the bed. Hephzibah looked so fragile and pale as she lay against the pillows that he had to remind himself of Merab’s words. Hephzibah would recover. She wasn’t going to die. Yet the terrible fear that he might lose her was still too fresh.
“I love you,” he whispered. He was surprised to realize how deeply he did love her. Hephzibah’s eyelids fluttered open; then tears began to flow silently down her cheeks.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m glad you’re here.”
“How do you feel?” It was an absurd question, but he didn’t know what else to say.
“Empty. I feel so empty—as if all the life has drained out of me and I’m just a hollow shell.”
“Don’t cry . . . there will be others. We’ll have more. . . .” His words sounded glib and artificial. He groped for better ones but couldn’t find them.
“I can’t stop thinking about our baby,” she said softly, “and wondering what he would have looked like—if he had your hair . . . your eyes. . . .”
“Hephzibah, don’t.”
“They told me it was a boy.”
Her words stunned him. For the first time he understood that the child had been a person, a living baby boy, his son. Now he was dead. Hezekiah knew that Hephzibah’s grief far surpassed his own, but at that moment he shared a small part of it with her. Their son was dead.
“Can I do anything, Hephzibah?”
“Please hold me.” She held her slender arms out to him. She looked so sorrowful, so lost in the piles of pillows and covers, that Hezekiah’s heart twisted inside him. He could see how much she needed him. But he hesitated, remembering something else.
“Hephzibah, I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Why not?” Her eyes pleaded with him, and he had to turn away.
“Because the Torah forbids it until . . . until you’re better. Then for seven more days after that.” He was aware of how much his words hurt her. They sounded cold and unfeeling to him as he spoke them. “Afterward, you must go to the priest and offer two doves, one for a sin offering, the other a burnt offering.”
“But why? How have I sinned? Is wanting our baby to live a sin?”
Hezekiah didn’t know why the Torah required it. He only knew what was written. “The Torah says—”
“Our baby is dead and you’re telling me I’ve sinned? Is that the kind of God you worship?” The anguish in her voice cut him deeply.
“No, Hephzibah. Yahweh isn’t like that.”
“Then why did He let our baby die? Can you tell me why? And why does He want more blood from me? How have I sinned?” Hezekiah couldn’t answer. He didn’t know. “I won’t bring a sin offering,” she said bitterly. “I have not sinned!”
Hezekiah’s stomach churned as he wrestled with his own doubts. He still didn’t understand all of Yahweh’s laws, and he knew how it felt to be angry with God, to have someone very precious snatched away by death. But he had finally adjusted to his loss and had accepted it as the will of God whether he understood it or not. Hephzibah would have to do the same.
He stared at his feet, ashamed to face Hephzibah, afraid she would see through his facade of legalism and discover the doubts and questions beneath it. He ached to go to her, to take her in his arms and comfort her, but if he held her he would become unclean until evening. He wouldn’t be able to worship in the Temple today. And as the King of Judah, he had the responsibility to lead the final convocation of the Feast of Tabernacles.
He stood beside Hephzibah’s bed, torn between love and duty. Then, as the distant shofar trumpeted the call to worship, Hezekiah turned and left the room.
Part Two
So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left, and even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced. Therefore the Lord rejected all the people of Israel; he afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he thrust them from his presence.
2 Kings 17:18–20 NIV
17
Darkness settled over Hephzibah’s soul as night fell and the pale light of oil lamps flickered to life in the houses below her palace window. She recalled tender family scenes from her own childhood and imagined them taking place in homes throughout the city. Families would gather for the evening meal, and their faces would glow in the lamplight as they shared the day’s events with each other. Then the children, scrubbed and sleepy, would be tucke
d into their beds for the night.
If her baby had lived he would be nearly three years old, and perhaps she would be rocking him to sleep, singing him a lullaby. But her baby was dead, and Hephzibah’s arms remained empty.
“My lady, that cool evening air isn’t good for you,” Merab said. “You’ll catch a chill. Here—let me light a fire for you.”
Hephzibah closed the shutters and turned away from the window. She watched her handmaiden fuss with the charcoal brazier, blowing noisily on the coals until they caught fire. “There. Maybe it’ll warm up in here before the king arrives.” Merab bustled around the room, plumping pillows and straightening rugs, then stopped when she glanced at Hephzibah. “What is it, my lady? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Merab, I hope my husband is too busy to come tonight.”
“My lady! Why would you wish for such a thing?”
Hephzibah’s grief spilled over in tears. “Because my monthly time has come again.”
“Oh, don’t start crying, honey. Your eyes will be all red and puffy. And he’ll be here any minute.” Merab dabbed at Hephzibah’s eyes with a handkerchief.
“I don’t want to tell him, Merab. I’m so afraid. . . .”
“Afraid of what?”
In her despair Hephzibah voiced her greatest fear. “What if he divorces me?”
Merab stared at her in disbelief. “What? Divorce you? But the king is in love with you! Can’t you see the way he looks at you—the way his eyes never leave your face? He’d sooner cut off his right arm than divorce you!”
Hephzibah knew that Hezekiah loved her. In the three years since their baby died she had felt his love grow stronger and deeper and had heard him say it many times over. Hezekiah was hers. But she also knew the strength of his devotion to Yahweh’s laws.
“He’ll have to divorce me, Merab, because I’m barren. I can’t give him an heir.”
“You’re not barren! Don’t even think such a thing!”
“Then why can’t I get pregnant? After all this time?”
Merab wrapped her arms around Hephzibah, comforting her like a child. “Shh . . . never mind, honey. You’ll get pregnant again—I know it. And King Hezekiah loves you too much to divorce you.”
“But if I don’t give him a son he’ll have to divorce me. It’s a terrible disgrace if the king has no heir to the throne.”
“He can always take another wife or a concubine—”
“But he won’t do that. Yahweh’s Law allows him to have only one wife. And the royal line of David must continue.”
“You mean more to him than a silly old law,” Merab said as she dabbed at Hephzibah’s eyes. But Hephzibah remembered how he had refused to hold her on the night her baby died, and she knew that it wasn’t true. “It’s time to stop all this nonsense,” Merab said. “Your husband is coming. Your face will be a mess.”
Hephzibah tried to compose herself, fighting back her terrible fears. She splashed cold water on her face, then let Merab comb her long, thick hair. A few minutes later she heard Hezekiah’s familiar knock and looked up to see his tall frame and broad shoulders filling her doorway. He looked so regal in his gold and purple robe, so handsome as he stood smiling down at her that she longed to run to him, to feel his strong arms surrounding her, comforting her.
Instead, she turned away. “It is unlawful to touch me, my lord.” She hated Yahweh’s Law for making her feel like a leper, for forbidding the very thing she needed the most. The Law caused a separation from her husband, and Hephzibah feared that someday it would be permanent.
“It’s not unlawful to talk,” Hezekiah said quietly.
Hephzibah looked up at him and saw the love in his eyes just as Merab had said. “I’m sorry for failing you, my lord.”
“I’ve told you before, Hephzibah—it doesn’t matter to me. We have the rest of our lives to bear children. Yahweh has promised us a son.”
Hephzibah cringed. She had never brought Yahweh the required sin offering, blaming Him for her baby’s death. She worried that her barrenness was His punishment for breaking the Law, but she stubbornly refused to offer more blood. Yahweh had taken her baby; that was enough.
Hezekiah sat down beside the charcoal brazier and spread his hands before the coals to warm them. When he looked up, his expression was strained with worry. In an instant Hephzibah forgot all his reassurances, certain that he was contemplating divorce.
“What’s wrong, my lord?”
“I’m worried about a report I received from Israel this afternoon. The Assyrians may be on the march again. Every year their empire expands, and it looks like they won’t be content until they’ve conquered every nation, all the way to Egypt. The problem is, our nation straddles the road to Egypt.”
“What will you do if they invade us?”
“Well, I’ll have two choices. I can try to fight them off, or I can appease them by joining their empire as a vassal nation again.”
“Which will you do?”
“I don’t know—neither one until I have to. They haven’t begun to march yet, but the rumors say it’s inevitable.” His hands knotted into fists as he talked.
Hephzibah saw the deep creases in his face and knew the threat must be serious, but she was incapable of worrying about a vague, future invasion from a distant enemy. Her thoughts focused only on her empty, aching arms.
“I’m sorry, Hephzibah,” he said, looking up at her. “I didn’t mean to burden you with all my problems. Maybe the rumors are wrong. Maybe the Assyrians will turn around and march home again.”
“You didn’t burden me, my lord. I wasn’t worried about that.”
“What is it, love? Why are you so sad tonight?”
Her eyes glistened with tears. “I’m just . . . disappointed, that’s all. I thought maybe this time . . . this month . . .”
Hezekiah moved as if to go to her, and she thought for a moment that he would take her in his arms and willingly become unclean for her sake. But he stopped before he reached her. His arms hung limply by his sides.
“Isn’t there anything I can do?” he asked helplessly.
She would not ask to be held, knowing that if she forced him to choose between his God and her, she would never win. She hastily wiped her tears. “No, my lord.”
“Are you sure?” He looked as if the burden of his reign weighed heavily on him, and she was stung by guilt. Hezekiah came to her for comfort, not the other way around. She tried to smile.
“Shall I sing for you, my lord?”
“Yes, I’d like that.”
She picked up her lyre and began to sing one of his favorite songs. But as she lost herself in the words and the melody, a flood of grief and disappointment suddenly overwhelmed her. She stopped, unable to finish, and covered her face.
“Hephzibah . . . would it be easier for you if I left?” he asked softly.
She longed to cry out, “No, don’t go! Hold me in your arms!” But she didn’t.
“Yes, my lord,” she said instead. She heard him get up and quietly leave, closing the door behind him.
Jerusha knelt before the hearth, slowly grinding grain into flour between the stones. On the horizon the rising sun was painting the sky with delicate shades of pink and mauve, but Jerusha barely noticed as she ground out her sorrow and hatred along with the grain. Today would be her last day in this camp. The city that the Assyrians had besieged for more than two years had finally fallen. As if in a dream, Jerusha had again witnessed thousands of helpless men, women, and children being clubbed to death, beheaded, tortured, impaled, flayed alive, or carried away into slavery.
Jerusha knew she couldn’t live with this brutality much longer and stay sane. The first signs of madness had already appeared as her soul splintered and disintegrated like a rotted log. She hadn’t smiled or laughed or felt any emotion besides fear and hatred since Iddina killed her baby. She thought of Marah’s icy bitterness, her harsh, unsmiling features, and knew that she was becoming just like her. Jerusha wasn’t a human bein
g to the Assyrians—she was their possession, a plaything to use and discard. More than anything else, she feared becoming pregnant again. She couldn’t kill her child in the womb, like Marah did, nor could she bear the agony of having her baby snatched from her arms again. It was only a matter of time before she would be forced to choose, but both options horrified her.
She poured the finished flour into the kneading trough, scooped another handful of grain between the grinding stones, and continued to grind. Tomorrow the tents would come down, and the army would march relentlessly forward to destroy another nation, enslave another helpless population. And Jerusha’s life would also grind hopelessly on, with no choice but to submit to her captors or die. She could no longer remember why she had wanted to live, and she often recalled Marah’s words that first day in camp: “Die, little fool! Die while you still have the chance to die quickly!” Why hadn’t she listened to her?
Jerusha finished the second batch of flour and poured it into the trough. She had enough to make the dough as soon as Marah returned with the water. But as Marah hurried back from the spring with the water jug, she appeared upset.
“What’s the matter?” Jerusha asked her.
“I found out where the Assyrian army is marching next.” Marah set the jug down and sank to her knees, pausing as if unable to speak the words. “They’re going to invade Israel. And it won’t be small raiding parties this time, either. They’re sending the entire army.”
Jerusha didn’t respond. The news that she would witness the brutal destruction of her own homeland and people came as a blow to a soul too numb to feel more pain. For a moment she could almost picture the rolling green hills of Israel, the beautiful Jordan Valley, the shimmering Sea of Galilee; then she quickly closed her eyes against the vision of what the Assyrians would do.